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thursday, may 4, 1978
Steve Martin wild and craaazy' in Bananaland
page 2
By Casey McCabe
The Steve Martin phenomenon hit Lincoln Saturday
night, and 7,500 people filled Pershing Auditorium to
prove that they too were '.'wild and craaazy guys".
The man outside the auditorium was doing brisk busi
ness selling fake noses, and arrows-through-the-head.
Balloon heads and umbrella heads, other Martin inspired
trademarks, were fairly visible as well. The atmosphere in
the crowd was slightly under lunacy. It seems that Steve
Martin has almost single-handedly made being an idiot
socially acceptable.
It is a phenomenon in that 7,500 people paid the un
usually high price of $7.50 and $8.50 to see a comedian,
who a year ago was limited mostly to appearances on
The Tonight Show. Today he has the biggest selling
comedy album of all time, and more offers than he can
count, all for one simple reason; he's outrageously funny.
But the 32-year-old Martin put 10 years in the comedy
business before achieving his recent success. He quit
UCLA after landing a job as a comedy writer for the
original Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Through that,
he later went on to write for Glen Campbell, Ray Stevens,
Pat Paulsen, and Sonny and Cher.
Martin soon learned that the best person to do his
material was himself. So he soon quit writing and became
a performer, opening for shows anywhere he could. Fre
quently he led off for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and it
was through one of the band members, John McEuen,
that Steve first learned to play the banjo. The banjo has
since become a regular feature of Martin's act.
While he had been experiencing moments of success,
Steve Martin was ready to abandon show business in
1975. He'd had several appearances on the Tonight Show,
but not much was coming out of them. He bombed a
couple of shows when the audience, almost understand
ably, didn't have the vaguest idea what he was talking
about. He returned to his home in Aspen, Colo., and con
templated his career.
In the meantime, his material began to move to the
slightly more bizzare. He began insulting the audience,
and removing any dignity that might have been found in
his art before. At one university he led 300 members of
the audience to the local McDonald's and ordered one
order of french-fries. Another time he led the crowd to
an empty swimming pool, had them climb in, and swam
across their bodies, it was something comedy had never
seen before, but the people loved it.
One of the major catalysts to Martin's career was host
ing Saturday Night Live (he has since become one of the
show's most prolific hosts). Together with more frequent
spots on The Tonight Show, now as a host), people began
to remember his name. Since then, he's struck paydirt
with his first album Lets Get Small which went platinum,
and a comedy short film The Absent Minded Watier which
earned an academy award nomination.
If you haven't heard of Steve Martin by now, it can
be assumed you've been living in a cave.
Devotion to the Martin style of humor is cropping up
everywhere. More and more people are finding them
selves inadvertently slipping into his deep-throated
"hi! I'm a neat guy" voice, or taking his advice from
'The Grandma Song" and "being tasteless, rude, and of-
((daytime))
MORNING
THURS THRU WED
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fensive." Except it's all done in the name of "se-mi-pro-fessional"
comedy.
As the leader of this new cult, Martin has created a
fanatic following. As mentioned earlier, the Lincoln fans,
like all over the country, dress accordingly to fit the de
mented atmosphere. When the spotlight hits Martin as he
comes out on stage, bedlam erupts. The crowd goes wild
with enthusiastic cheering, .and he hasn't even said any
thing yet.
Let's assume you have been living in a cave. What
makes Steve Martin funny? It's rather hard to describe un
less you can picture a basically handsome, gray-haired
friend of John Denver, who admittedly will do anything
for a laugh. For instance, a casual Martin announces to
the audience; "Here's something you don't see every
day". . (proceeds to leap up and down several times,
stretch out his mouth with both hands and scream
"Aaaarrgh!" then quickly returns to a state of
composure).
Other times the comedy might be based on something
as innocent as a card or magic trick. It isn't especially
funny making a dime disappear, but when he dedicates it
to the people way up in the cheap seats, it's a different
story. Another one is the infamous, drawn out King of
Hearts routine.
He fans out a deck of cards and picks a volunteer from
the crowd. Taking the King of Heats and placing it visibly
in the deck, he tells the volunteer; "When the vibes are
right, I want you to yell out "King of Hearts, Come Down
and Dancel' Now everyone has to concentrate on the
King of Hearts."
After a few seconds of silent suspense from the crowd,
the volunteer yells "King of Hearts, Come down and
dance!". At which Martin plucks the King from the deck
and with his hands makes the card do an idiotic little
dance down the mike stand and on the floor, all the while
singing "doo di doodle, di doo doo woe, woe. . ."
He's sort of into humiliating himself and the audience
like that. He constantly ribs them about what they paid
to get in; $8.50 to get in here? I mean for that I ought to
just come "out here and do this, (flips off the crowd),
"Okay, once more for the photographers."
Some of the best parts of Martin's routine are his emo
tionally involved stories where he puts on a serious front.
8
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ALL MY CHILDREN
MAY MAGAZINE (THUR.)
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fl PHIL DONAHUE SHOW
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81
Entertainment Editor: Pete Mason. Cover Design. Liz Beard. Layout:
Kitty Policky.
Ad lib is an entertainment supplement published by the Daily Nebras
kan. Editor in Chief: Ron Ruggless. Advertising Manager: Gregg Wurde
man. Production Manager: Kitty Policky. Business Manager: Jerri Ha us tier.
Unless covered by another copyright, material may be reprinted with
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Cower photos by Bob Pa arson and Tad Kirk
JCYSHOW
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while the listener is on the edge of his seat waiting for
the inevitably twisted result. One is his famous meeting
with Jackie Onassis in a Tuscon Arizona laundromat.
Another is the sad story of his girlfriend which he tells
with tragic self-pity:
"We were together for three years, we went every place
together and-l shouldn't even talk about this, but. . .
well, she's not living anymore, and. . .and I guess I blame
myself for her death. We were at a party one night, and
we were arguing. And she started drinking quite heavily.
Finally we had this big screaming argument, and she went
out to the car; and she asked me to drive her home, and
I refused. I dirin t realize how much she'd been drinking.
She asked me again, she said 'Please, drive me home. I
didn't want to. . .so I shot her."
It's almost easy to see how people's first reaction to
Steve Martin is often, "hey, what is this?" But it grows on
you, and the secret is in Martin's reckless abandon
approach to comedy. From deadpan delivery of hilarious
materia', to total loss of control with a case of "happy
feet", Martin always seems able to hit on the irrelevant
chord of his crowd. And that crowd is getting bigger,
and Martin is becoming one of the most popular come
dians to ever come out of Bananaland.
Perhaps the heart of Steve Martin can be found in the
following little song he sings to a one-chord banjo accom
paniment; We're having some fun.
We've got music and laughter and wonderful times.
We're having some fun.
That's so important in today's world, oh yeah.
It's so hard to laugh.
It seems that short of tripping a nun nothing is funny
anymore.
But you know,
I see people going to college for fourteen years.
Studying to be doctors and lawyers,
And I see people going to work at the drugstore at
7j30 every morning
To sell Flair Pens,
But the most amazing thing to me is
I get paid
For doing
This.
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Barbi Benton stars as herself, performing at the world's
largest singles party in New Orleans, in 'MURDER AT
THE MARDI GRAS,' the May 10 feature on the CBS
Wednesday Night Movie.
